Реферат: Henry VIII And Louis XIV Essay Research

exterior than interior. Louis bankrupted the Treasury of France through another

extrvangance as well: his wars. Louis fought four major wars. His great aim

was to make himself supreme in Europe. As a start, he planned to conquer all

lands west of the Rhine River. He gained several important territories, but was

always checked by the alliances that other countries formed to oppose him. In

the War of Spanish Succession, England took an important part in defeating him,

leading to animosity between the two countries and their respective rulers.

This war, which ended in 1714, left France exhausted and weakened.

Both men had a common ability to see the goodness in other men as royal

advisors. Both hired surprisingly intelligent and wise men to run their affairs

for them, perhaps Henry even more than Louis XIV. One of Henry?s chief advisors

is immortalized in Shakespeare?s ?The Life and Times of Kind Henry VIII?.

Cardinal Wolsey is spoken of there as ?a man such as history had never yet laid

their eyes upon, a man who could have others get his own will enforced?

(Shakespeare 78). Wolsey spent little time at the British court, but the time

he spent was valuable. He served as chief advisor to a young, newly crowned,

and impressionable King Henry. He formed Henry?s ideas about government, spoke

for the monarch in assembly, and reputedly taught Henry everything he knew about

economics from an early age. Two other advisors are also known to history as

serving in Henry?s later life, Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More.

Likewise, Louis XIV, in a mark of true genius, was wise enough to

appoint someone wiser than himself to run the government. He had many, and

oddly, most of their names have been erased from history. Jean Baptise Colbert,

advisor to Louis in his formative years as a monarch, later wrote in prison, ?

The man was a fool, but would not surround himself with other fools? (Olivier

178).

In their personal lives, the monarchs had a great number of similarities.

Both Henry VIII and Louis XIV were fond of women, drink, and debate.

Henry is perhaps most famous for his six wives, and the bloody ends that